Showing posts with label festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label festival. Show all posts

Wakakusa Yamayaki: The Mountain Burning Festival

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Fireworks are a great way to celebrate any occasion, but like NuanQuan’s molten iron throwing festival, the Japanese city of Nara (the city of deer) has taken their festivities a notch higher.

Just behind Nara Park, stands an old, extinct volcano, called Mount Wakakusa, that rises gently to a height of 350 meters. From its peak, one can have unobstructed views of the entire city. Mount Wakakusa is hence very popular for walking and strolling. The mountain is covered by grass, and lining the slope of the mountain are cherry trees that are usually in full bloom around early April. But as winter approaches, the grass begins to die and the cherry trees lose their leaves and the mountain looks very bald. This is when the famous Wakakusa Yamayaki festival takes place.

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Photo credit: Nagoya Taro/Wikimedia

Flower Carpets at Infiorata Festival, Italy

The best time to visit Italy, if you want to catch the incredible Infiorata festival, is during May and June. At this time of the year, especially on the occasion of Corpus Domini, many Italian towns decorate their streets with flower petals creating beautiful artworks ranging from simple geometric designs to elaborate tapestries inspired by religious art and famous paintings.

To create the flower carpets, the design is first sketched in chalk on the pavement, and then filled in with thousands of petals of various colors. Sometimes soil is used to highlight the outline of the design. At other times, wood carvings is used along with flowers. The entire process takes two or three days to complete. Often a religious procession takes place on the flower carpets after there are completed.

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Photo credit: Stefano Mortellaro/Flickr